


Take Me Home

by rory_the_dragon



Series: Miles And Miles [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Ambiguously Underage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Fairytale AU, Peter POV, Relationship Issues, The Lost Boys Are A Gang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rory_the_dragon/pseuds/rory_the_dragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry turns to look at him and Peter can’t breathe. </p>
<p>He’s twenty one years old, he’s been arrested more times than even he can remember, has more scars that he can count, he runs the most feared gang on either side of the tracks and he’s breathless in the face of one boy.</p>
<p>(Or: the one where Peter and Henry are in a fight)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me Home

**Author's Note:**

> This work is set in the same universe as Seek You Out, which I have dubbed the 'Miles And Miles' verse, an all human, no fairytale universe which still takes place in Storybrooke. The Lost Boys are a gang. Peter and Henry are in an established relationship.
> 
> Set after Seek You Out.
> 
> Henry is 17 and Peter is 21.

 

They’re fighting.

Which is misleading, really, because _fighting_ implies a constant when Peter hasn’t seen Henry in five days now so maybe it’s more accurate to say ‘they fought’ and are now not speaking.

It had been ugly, too. Loud and public in the back room of Neverland. Peter’s brain can only really remember the way Henry’s eyes had flashed, the way he’d all but thrown himself at Peter in the way he gets when he’s angry and forgets that he’s small, fragile, precious, the hard lines of his shoulders as he’d walked away. He can still taste the bile in his mouth, though, feeling sick the whole time they’d been flinging accusations and hurts at each other but utterly unable to stop.

It’s not their first fight, but it’s the first one that’s gone so long without one of them making the first move of apologies. And Peter… Peter knows it should be him, he _does_ , but Henry has a talent for infuriating him til he can’t see straight, let alone act like an actual fucking human being.

God he loves him.

_Fuck_.

He hasn’t been back to his apartment for four nights, unable to sleep in the expanses of his bed without Henry lying beside him, which is ridiculous because Henry doesn’t even live with him, Peter goes _weeks_ without Henry staying over and manages just fine, but now his bed feels cold, too big and too empty. So he’s been sleeping at Felix’s. It’s easier to pretend when he’s just pressed into the creases of Felix’s too-small couch, and even if he wakes with a crick in his neck at least he’s slept.

He doesn’t go to Wendy’s. Henry has a talent for drawing out the protective fire in people, and it’s no different with Wendy. If he went over there he’d be lucky to make it out. Which is a lie because Wendy loves him just as fiercely as she loves Henry, doesn’t know how to hate Peter in the same way he can’t not love her, even as much as they bicker and fight. Peter just really doesn’t want to hear all the ways in which he fucked up, see the disappointment in her face.

He’s also not sure he’d be able to stop himself from asking about Henry.

He wanders the streets for an hour before he makes a decision, steels his shoulders and makes a definite right where he should be turning left, heads into the bright lights of the town centre and continues through into the sprawl of suburban streets he so rarely visited before Henry appeared.

Henry’s bedroom light is on, curtains drawn, and Peter would put good money on his window being locked. Honestly, he’s surprised that the tree he usually uses to clamber up and into Henry’s bedroom isn’t torn down. Henry had certainly been angry enough to do it.

Peter waits on the opposite side of the street for a few minutes, trying to make out the outline of Henry’s silhouette through his curtains, but there’s no movement.

Emma answers the door when he finally manages to reach out and press the bell, face closing as soon as she sees him standing there. She’s not in uniform, dressed in plaid pyjama bottoms and vest, but she still looks as intimidating as every single time she’s arrested him, mouth a thin line as she looks him over.

“What do you want?” Peter definitely doesn’t imagine the glance she shoots to the stairs behind her. Checking for Henry.

“Sheriff.” He nods and doesn’t lean against the door-frame, doesn’t smirk, doesn’t do anything he usually does when confronted with Emma Swan because right now? This is not about her. “Is Henry here?”

There’s a moment, he can see it in her eyes, where she considers lying to him. He almost expects to her before she’s crossing her arms, eyes hard. “I don’t think he wants to see you.”

Peter feels the area around his heart tighten. “I expected that.”

“He’s been miserable for days,” She says, the _you did that to him_ going unsaid.

“I can assure you,” He meets her eyes, doesn’t blink. “He’s not the only one.”

Because he has been, completely unbearable. If Felix were a lesser man he would have kicked Peter out after the first day.

“Mom.” They both look up, see Henry standing at the top of the stairs, and a goddamn freight train crashes its way into Peter’s chest, pushes the breath out of his lungs. Fuck, he is so far gone on this kid that it passed being funny months ago. “It’s okay.”

Peter can’t see Emma’s face anymore, but sees the rigid lines of her shoulders soften as Henry comes halfway down the stairs and Peter doesn’t think he’ll ever understand Emma Swan as well as he does in that moment. Henry does that to you, because even in the hammer-hard thrum of his pulse, the darting panic of his mind as he realises that he has no idea what to say to Henry, no idea how to make it better, just seeing him is enough to make Peter’s hands stop shaking.

“You sure, kid?”

Henry nods, looking straight at Peter now, and there’s none of the softness left in his eyes anymore and all Peter can think is _fuck, I did that, that’s my fault_.

Peter has never been one for regret, but he feels sick right now.

“Okay.” The word is pulled out of Emma’s mouth reluctantly. “You leave the door open.”

Henry nods again, and Emma turns back to look Peter dead in the eyes. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t need to. So Peter just nods and moves past her, follows Henry up the stairs and into his room, leaving a large enough gap that every part of him is just singing out to close.

Henry doesn’t close his door, but only just, leaving a thin crack that Peter is pretty sure all the air in the room is escaping through because Henry turns to look at him and Peter can’t breathe. He’s twenty one years old, he’s been arrested more times than even he can remember, has more scars that he can count, he runs the most feared gang on either side of the tracks and he’s breathless in the face of one boy.

They don’t say anything, silence stretching between them like a wire, and what’s fucking killing Peter right now is that Henry doesn’t look angry anymore. He looks sad.

“The things I said,” He gets out, and once they’re out it’s like he’s smashed through the dam. “I shouldn’t have said them,” spills out. “They were wrong. I was wrong,” follows it. The words trip out of him mouth like water. They’ve been building up inside of him for five days.

“You’re not…” He stops, forces himself to say the next few words because he hates himself for saying them in the first place. “You’re not an inconvenience. And you’re not a distraction. Or if you are, you’re so much more than that. I-” Peter doesn’t know what to say next, because ‘ _I was angry_ ’, ‘ _I was tired_ ’, ‘ _I’m just so scared of everything you are_ ’ all sound like excuses to even his ears.

“I’m sorry,” is all he can manage, and he almost can’t believe it’s his voice that says it, that hangs between them, punched out and pained. Then because it still doesn’t feel like enough, he says, “I can’t sleep, _fuck_.”

Collapsing onto the edge of Henry’s bed is instinct, head in his hands. He wants to hit something. He’s been punching walls for five days now, knuckles shredded, punishing himself and it hasn’t helped one bit but _god_ he wants to.

Something soft brushes against his hands, disentangling them from his hair, and he looks up at Henry, mouth open, lets Henry push his hands down. Henry doesn’t break eye contact, doesn’t let go of his hands either.

Peter feels like an idiot, almost always does around Henry, always scrambling to keep up with him, and he _doesn’t understand right now_ because Henry’s touch is soft, gentle, thumb rubbing against the tattered skin of Peter’s knuckles.

“At least tell me the other guy has it worse,” is the first thing Henry says to him in five days, and Peter can’t speak for a full three seconds, confused out of his mind.

“It was a wall,” He says, amends, “Walls.”

A brief flash of a smile crosses Henry’s lips, a small huff of air that could be a laugh, something in his eyes that Peter could tentatively call fond. Henry is only seventeen, still a kid, but he seems eons older than Peter will ever be in that moment, wiser.

Henry lets go of his hands and Peter feels bereft until Henry joins him on the bed, thigh pressed against his. He doesn’t look at him, staring ahead as he says, “It wasn’t all your fault.”

Henry might not be looking at him, but Peter is looking at Henry, the slope of his cheeks, the curve of his ear, the way he’s worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. He is stupidly in love with this kid, the way he’s never loved anything before, soft.

“I said some pretty nasty things as well.” Henry admits, looking down at the loose cling of his hands instead of at Peter. “I don’t think any of it, not really. I was angry.”

Angry is an understatement. Henry had been spitting, a storm, and everything Peter had had in him had been terrified that this was it, that this was Henry leaving and Peter had to beat him to the punch, _couldn’t not_. Had to roll his eyes, curl his lip, in the face of Henry’s hurts, his _distant_ , his _you’ve barely_ touched _me in weeks_ , his _do you even care about me anymore, Peter_? It’d only been after his derision that Henry had turned scathing, mean in his hurts, _do you even know how to love someone? You’re a fucking child, Peter!_

Peter doesn’t have a response that’d be worth listening to. Maybe they’re both to blame, but Peter had drawn first blood.

He’s never loved anything softly until Henry, and he still fucked that up.

“Wendy said something to me, about you,” Henry says, finally turning back to meet Peter’s gaze and they’re so close now, Peter can taste Henry’s breath as it fans out across his face, warm and wet. There’s maybe two inches between them, and neither of them are moving. Peter’s chest feels tight. He has to force himself to listen to what Henry says next. “She said that I scare you.”

Peter feels someone’s slid a knife into his ribs. “You’re the most terrifying thing in my life,” He says, and it _aches_ with honesty because Peter never knew what fear was until he let Henry into his life, doesn’t know how not to be afraid of his beautiful boy who is so much more than anything Peter will ever be, who constantly and consistently keeps coming back to him, keeps carving out a place for himself in Peter’s heart while Peter isn’t looking. Henry got in under the wire, and Peter’s terrified that he’ll be the one who’ll fuck Henry up beyond all repair, that he’ll ruin Henry’s perfect golden _ridiculous_ littleboy heart. Peter has never known how to be a good person, but Henry makes him want to be, even if just a little bit, even if just for him.

How can Peter not be scared of that?

Henry makes a pained little noise in the back of his throat, like Peter’s just gutted him, and presses a soft hand to Peter’s cheek. His eyes close at the contact. “I don’t want that.”

Peter shrugs, because it’s not something he can change, not something that’s ever going to. Henry is always going to terrify Peter, and Peter’s always going to love him more than that, in spite of that, because of that. And maybe that’s not healthy, not something he can expect Henry to put up with forever, maybe it’ll always end up in a screaming match and a whisper-soft conversation in Henry’s dim room, but if the exchange is moments like these, when the rest of the world just fades away and leaves them just utterly wrapped up in each other, or when Henry’s truest and widest smile is directly solely at Peter and Peter can’t stop the fizz of his blood in his veins, or when Peter can wake up in the middle of the night and brush his lips against the nape of Henry’s neck as he sleeps...it’s not even a question.

Maybe one day he’ll be able to explain that to Henry, if he ever gets the chance.

“I’ve been unbearable these past few days,” He says instead, because it’s part of it even if it’s not all of it. “I’m surprised Felix hasn’t shot me.”

“Felix would never shoot you,” Henry says, and there’s that smile again. “He wouldn’t want the responsibility of being in charge.”

They’ve turned towards one another, like magnets, and Peter doesn’t know if he’s allowed to reach out, touch, doesn’t know what to do with his hands, when Henry makes another noise in his throat, pulls Peter in by his shirt and seals their lips together.

Henry’s always been smaller than Peter, and even sitting down doesn’t even out the height difference so Peter bends his neck to catch the kiss more fully, cups the back of Henry’s neck and kisses him back, gentle, like Henry’s something fragile under his hands. He kisses at Henry like he’s drowning and Henry’s air, feels Henry’s hands in his hair and can’t stop the exhale of relief that breaks free.

“Don’t do this again,” Henry says, breathes really, when they separate, and his eyes look so pleading that Peter doesn’t know what to do with himself in the face of it. “I’m not going to promise I’m never going to leave, because you won’t listen. But don’t push me away again.” His _Please, Peter_ is pushed into Peter’s mouth until Peter can taste it on his tongue, and he takes it, turns it into an _I’m sorry_ and breathes that back, follows it with his lips, leaning Henry down into his mattress when he starts shaking.

They trade chaste kisses in the dark until the crushing weight that’s pushing down on Peter’s lungs for the past five days lifts, until he can feel Henry smiling against his mouth again, until Henry finally pulls back, eyes bright and smile soft. “I’ve got school tomorrow.”

Peter doesn’t want to leave him, pushed into his pillows with his mouth blushed red, but he sits up, lets Henry lean up on his elbows beneath him then ducks back down to press one more kiss to his mouth. Henry laughs against him, and whatever was left pressing down on Peter’s heart disappears. “I’ll see you tomorrow, after school?” He asks, and he’s twenty one not twelve but he can’t help it.

Something in Henry’s expression changes. “Stay,” He says, and it’s dark so Peter can’t tell but he’s sure there’s a blush rising in Henry’s cheeks. “...I haven’t been able to sleep either.”

“Your mom?”

“She trusts me,” Henry says. Neither of them mention that even though Emma Swan might trust Henry, it’s a feeling that definitely doesn’t extend to Peter. Especially not after all this. “So you’ll stay?”

“Alright,” He says, because Peter doesn’t know how to say no to Henry, doesn’t want to. “I’ll stay.”

And in the morning he’ll wake up at whatever stupidly early time Henry gets up at for school, kiss him in his tiny bed with morning breath until he’s running late, and walk out under Emma Swan’s eye, Henry’s hand firmly in his.

 


End file.
